Thomas Sanderling grew up in
St.Petersburg, where his father Kurt Sanderling was conductor of the
St.Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra. After graduating from the Music School of
the Leningrad Conservatory he studied conducting at the Hochschule fuer Musik in
East-Berlin. At the age of 24 he became the Music Director of the Halle Opera.
At an early age he appeared frequently with the leading East German orchestras
and opera houses, including the Dresden Staatskapelle and Leipzig
Gewandhaus.

He
won the Berlin Critics’ Prize for his opera performances at the Komische Oper
(Berlin).

After
Shostakovich heard him with the State Orchestra of Russia, the composer asked
him to give the German premieres of his 13th and 14th symphonies and this
relationship also saw him make the world premiere recording of ‘The Michelangelo
Suite’, Shostakovich’s last orchestral work.

This CD
led to the assistant work for Leonard Bernstein and Herbert von Karajan.

Thomas
Sanderling has conducted extensively on the international stage, with orchestras
in North America including the National, Dallas, Baltimore and Vancouver
Symphonies, in Europe with the Royal Stockholm, Oslo and Helsinki Philharmonics,
and in the UK the Philharmonia, London Philharmonic and Royal Philharmonic. He
is also a regular guest conductor of Radio Orchestras in the UK, Germany, Italy
and the Netherlands.

In Japan
he won the Grand Prix of the Osaka Critics twice in three years and in 1992
became Music Director of the Osaka Symphoniker. This
Orchestra recently awarded Thomas Sanderling with the title Music Director
Laureate for Lifetime.

Thomas
Sanderling is equally acclaimed for his operatic work. He was Permanent Guest
Conductor of the Deutsche Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin from 1978 to 1983 (
when he moved to the West ), where through the years he conducted an extensive
repertory of operas by Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Wagner, Verdi, Smetana, Dvorak
Puccini, Tchaikovsky, Richard Strauss, etc. Other notable appearances include
the Vienna Staatsoper – ‘Die Zauberflöte’ ( after that his Vienna Debut the
Wiener Kurier wrote “….a new conductor from Berlin gave us a Mozart full of
mysteries. Astonishing.”), and ‘Le Nozze di Figaro’ (first performance after the
death of Karl Boehm)- and at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Frankfurt, Deutsche Oper
Berlin and the Hamburg State Opera.

He has
also conducted ‘ Die Zauberflöte’ at La Fenice – the last Ponnelle production –
and ‘Don Giovanni’ at the Royal Danish Opera and the Finnish National
Opera.

Thomas
Sanderling enjoys a strong relationship with the St.Petersburg Philharmonic
where he has appeared in concert regularly. His CD of Mahler’s 6th Symphony with
the orchestra – its first Mahler recording – achieved great success, culminating
in a Cannes Classical Award in 1998. His following CDs of the Complete Brahms
Symphonies with the Philharmonia Orchestra London achieved similar recognition
and attracted critics’ prizes in record magazines throughout the world.

Since 2002
Sanderling is also Guest Conductor of the Novosibirsk Philharmonic
Orchestra.

In 2004 he
became Principal Guest Conductor of the National Philharmonic Orchestra of
Russia.

In June
2005 he conducted two CD recordings for Deutsche Grammophon with Shostakovich
Premiers, which received a high acclaim of the critics. Those CD’s became “The
Editor’s Choice” In the September 2006 issue of The Gramophone in
London.

Thomas
Sanderling appeared in recent years with the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Montreal
Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Liverpool Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, with the Tchaikovsky
Radio-Symphony Orchestra in Moscow (Mahler 9.) and on their tour in Germany
(Tchaikovsky 6), the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the
WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne, the Mariinsky Theatre
in St.Petersburg (Lohengrin), etc.

Recently
Thomas Sanderling successfully conducted several revivals of Shostakovich’s
“ Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk Region “ and several revivals
of the “Magic Flute” (staging by Graham Wick) at the Bolshoi Theatre in
Moscow.

Since 2006
Thomas Sanderling conducted a number of Shostakovich Premiers in performances
and recordings in close co-operation with Irina
Shostakovich, the composers widow.

In May and
September 2007 he conducted very successful concerts with MDR Symphonie
Orchestra at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig and the Philharmonie in Cologne and with
the Symphony Orchestra of the Bavarian Radio at the
Gasteig in Munich.

In the
spring of 2008 Thomas Sanderling had his first successful co-operation with
the stage director Daniele Abbado (son of Claudio) on his
new version of Eisenstein’s film “Alexander Nevskij” with
Prokoffiev’s Cantata.

In recent
years Thomas Sanderling recorded the complete orchestral works by Taneyev for
Naxos.

Future
planes include amongst other concerts with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonc
Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester in Berlin, with the State Svetlanov
Orchestra of Russia, the St Petersburg Philharmonic, a number of performances of
works by Shostakovitch at many different orchestras and festivals, opera
performances at the Mariinsky Theatre and the Bolshoi Theatre, concerts with the
National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia in Germany, Recordings for Sony
Classical International, Orfeo, Naxos etc., etc. Concerts with the Sydney
Symphony, Malayasian Philharmonic etc.

CD
recordings with the Halle Orchestra Manchester and the Bournemouth
Symphony.

New
production of Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth” at the Goeteborg Opera with Graham
Wick as stage director beginning of 2012.

Also with
Graham Wick a new production of Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro” at the National
Center of Performing Arts in Bejing in May 2012 etc., etc.

In
February 2006 Thomas Sanderling, who has been the Novosibirsk Symphony’s Guest
Conductor since 2002, took part in a concert tour of the orchestra to Europe
(France, Switzerland). In September 2007 he, together with Fabio Mastrangelo
received a status of the Principal Guest Conductor. Since 2005 till 2008 he
recorded with the orchestra 5th Symphony by S.Prokofiev and «Romeo and Juliet»
by P.Tchaikovsky for Audite company, and on an order of Naxos company they
recorded all symphonies and some others opuses by S.Taneev.

T.Sanderlings CD with Shostakovich Premiers was chosen by Classics
Today (New York) as the only Deutsche Grammophon
recording amongst the 20 Best CD’s of the Year 2007.

His
recording of the 4. Symphony by Taneyev (Naxos) was recently chosen as
the “CD of the Month” in Fono Forum, the leading
publication of critics in Germany.